Consultations on enhancing retirement security

All Canadians deserve a safe, secure and dignified retirement. In recent years, some pensioners have found themselves in difficult circumstances, facing reduced benefits as a result of their employer's insolvency and an underfunded pension plan. To address these issues and enhance retirement security, we sought feedback from Canadians.

Consulting Canadians

From November 22, 2018 to December 21, 2018, we invited Canadians to share their views and opinions on how we can help to enhance retirement security, particularly for those who have workplace pension plans. Potential options to address the issues at hand related to pension, corporate governance and insolvency policies, and included the following:

  • measures to help ensure that employers maintain well-funded pension plans, such as incentives to eliminate pension deficits before there is the prospect of insolvency
  • restrictions on corporate behaviour, where appropriate, to better align corporate decision-making with pensioner and employee interests, such as restricting executive compensation and the payment of dividends in insolvency or near-insolvency situations
  • more transparency and fairness in insolvency proceedings by increasing the information available and opportunities to participate in the proceedings at critical stages

In addition to hearing the views of Canadians, officials conducted targeted outreach based largely on consultation document below.

The Consultations on enhancing retirement security closed on December 21, 2018.

Consultations closed